A Babylon 5 Mod for the Final Frontier Mod

[Retrospect]

Thanks, still the same though :-(

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

I did a clean install of BTS, applied both patches, and the game still crashes when spaceships are build.

 

[Premier Valle]

Hello everyone!,

I'm sorry to hear the CTDs still happen. In the mean time here is something else, I finally got some time to model the Dilgar Deathwalker so here is a study/proposal of it, there is little in the way of reference for this ship, so I made a draft (big pic warning ):

Spoiler :

As you can see there is not much detail, no guns, no mass driver, etc..., detailing will be done later, but I wanted to show you this to hear your impressions.

 

[PsiCorps]

This ship looks powerful, can't wait to see it with a skin.

I did a clean install of BTS, applied both patches, and the game still crashes when spaceships are build.

I really don't know what to suggest, I have no problems with the Mod crashing in the earlier part of the game and if it does crash I am able to reload the last autosave and play beyond the crashing point. Maybe someone with a lot more fault finding can look at the mod and figure out why it is crashing?! Please!!!!!!

 

[Retrospect]

This ship looks powerful, can't wait to see it with a skin.

I really don't know what to suggest, I have no problems with the Mod crashing in the earlier part of the game and if it does crash I am able to reload the last autosave and play beyond the crashing point. Maybe someone with a lot more fault finding can look at the mod and figure out why it is crashing?! Please!!!!!!

It seems to me (from a layman's point of view) that greeneyedzombie and I are somehow missing something from the mod.

Have you tried Dl'ing 2.61 yourself and trying that? If you have and can, then the only other thing I can think is that we are missing a prerequisite of some sort.

 

[PsiCorps]

I DL'd 2.61 this morning and have played 325 turns straight with no crashes. This leaves me with only one thought about what the problem may be. Other than the B5 Mod (V2.5Plus, 2.6 and 2.61), FF and FF+, the other Mods that come with BtS I have no other Mods installed. Maybe the problem is linked to not having one of those mods installed or that you have another Mod installed that I don't have.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

Do you have a link to the V2.5Plus?
I haven't heard of mods interfering with each other, but the warhammer mod had a problem with needing to have fall further in your mod directory. Due to some code checking/needing the fall further mod in warhammer.

 

[PsiCorps]

Do you have a link to the V2.5Plus?
I haven't heard of mods interfering with each other, but the warhammer mod had a problem with needing to have fall further in your mod directory. Due to some code checking/needing the fall further mod in warhammer.

I'll re-upload V2.5Plus and post here once it's done.

EDIT
Here's the link for 2.5plus B5 Mod V2.5Plus I hope this helps.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

I still don't get it to work.
I removed all other mods and it still crashes. Even when I disabled hide python exceptions (if thats the correct one to see error messages?) I still don't get any message, but just a plain crash to desktop.
Version 2.5plus crashes too when ships come into play. Only version 2.3 seems to be playable for me.
I was sure 2.4 was playable too for me. So I'm not sure why it isn't anymore, or why it has the same problem as the later versions.

 

[God-Emperor]

I've been looking at this (as it turns out, even before you PMed me PsiCorps).

For me, it does crash early although not exactly when someone builds the first ship. It is possible to continue from the last autosave.

I have not yet used a debug DLL on the thing but...

It looks like the crash is caused by the "unit class default unit types do not exist" issue. In CIV4UnitClassInfos.xml most of the unit classes specify unit types that do not exist in the CIV4UnitInfos.xml file.

Attached is a zip file with a modified version of CIV4UnitClassInfos.xml. I changed all the default unit types to be the Earth Alliance unit types (EA civ selected as the default because I'm on the Earth right now, as I suspect most of the rest of you are). I have not had a crash since the change, although I have not tested it very much. This makes everybody but the EA have ships listed as "Unique Unit for [Civilization X]" and "Replaces [EA ship of that class]" in the 'pedia and hover text - this has the potentially beneficial side effect of making it possible to tell which ships are the same general class of ship (the EA version has links to all of the UU versions in its 'pedia entry). It also makes everybody's civ specific ships show up on their civ screen and the "Dawn of Man" screen at the start of the game as UUs, except for the EA.

I also noticed that there are references to FFP traits in 3 places in the Python. One of them is what is causing the unexplained extra 4 staring experience for every unit. In FinalFrontierEvents.py you can comment out or remove lines 1126-1129 (which will remove the 4 extra xp per unit). In FinalFrontierGameUtils.py you can comment out or remove lines 704-715 (or change the traits specified to be B5 civilizations that have similar properties for these trait specific changes to the settling value of star systems).

The 'pedia index also dies in the D's apparently when trying to add the Dilgar Imperium trait to the list (the Dilgar Imperium civilization is the last thing that shows up so the entry for the trait should be the next thing shown). I'm not sure why - it's entry in the BUG trait related Python file should be checked. Also trait related, there is text for the FFP traits in the TraitsPedia_CIV4GameText.xml file which could be clogging up the works (removing it doesn't solve the index problem).

Not exactly bugs, as such, but there are a variety of "weird things" in the game. Here are 2:
1) The 3rd generation missile is available before the 2nd generation missile. The tech you get the 3rd gen one from is a direct prerequisite in the tech tree for the one where you get the 2nd gen one.
2) Food output is very high - in my last test game it is not quite turn 150 and the Markab home system (their only system since I recently beat them to settling a star system that would have been their first colony by 2 turns just a few turns ago) has a population of 41 or 42 (which is at least 15 more than it could possibly have actually working on the planets as it is highly unlikely that they have the tech that enables the Extended Habitation System, and even with that they probably couldn't use that much population). I think the reason for this is three things. The biggest is that each civ's "cultural" building is not only giving +1 it is also adding +1 to the planet yields (it is a Nutrition Facility equivalent) even though it does not say it does and since it also gives a bunch of other things that make it desirable to build even when you do not need more food, I expect the AIs are building them on every planet with a pretty high priority. The second is the various percentage bonuses from civics, which tend to be pretty big in the capital city (note that the capital gets both the "in the Capital" and the "in every city" bonuses so +10% and +5 respectively actually gets +15% for the Capitol, Industrialized gets those two bonuses and both Agrarian and Forced Labor get +5% and +5% for a combined total of +25% if you are using Industrialized and either of them). The third thing is various +1 bonuses from other buildings.


Anyhow, time for the attachment...

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

The good news is, the game works without crashing with the new ship-xml file.
I've been going through the xml-file for the buildings. Checking the race specific replacements for the nutrition facility.
There are three instances where it gives an extra food.
the first is:
<GlobalSeaPlotYieldChanges/>
<YieldChanges>
<iYield>1</iYield>
second:
<PlanetYieldChanges>
<iYield>1</iYield>

third: <TraitPlanetYieldChange>
<TraitType>TRAIT_MINBARI_FEDERATION</TraitType>


<PlanetYieldChanges>
<iYield>1</iYield>

Should I just change the last 2 to 0 yield and upload it here?

2) Food output is very high - in my last test game it is not quite turn 150 and the Markab home system (their only system since I recently beat them to settling a star system that would have been their first colony by 2 turns just a few turns ago) has a population of 41 or 42 (which is at least 15 more than it could possibly have actually working on the planets as it is highly unlikely that they have the tech that enables the Extended Habitation System, and even with that they probably couldn't use that much population). I think the reason for this is three things. The biggest is that each civ's "cultural" building is not only giving +1 it is also adding +1 to the planet yields (it is a Nutrition Facility equivalent) even though it does not say it does and since it also gives a bunch of other things that make it desirable to build even when you do not need more food, I expect the AIs are building them on every planet with a pretty high priority. The second is the various percentage bonuses from civics, which tend to be pretty big in the capital city (note that the capital gets both the "in the Capital" and the "in every city" bonuses so +10% and +5 respectively actually gets +15% for the Capitol, Industrialized gets those two bonuses and both Agrarian and Forced Labor get +5% and +5% for a combined total of +25% if you are using Industrialized and either of them). The third thing is various +1 bonuses from other buildings.

Excess food is a native ff problem.
As you stated civics are a huge source of food late game. Maybe later in development the bonus can be removed if the civics get changed.
The other where the trade bonus (food and production) with some traits. But giving a flat +1 food bonus fixes this.
I'm fine with only buildings increasing food yields.

Is there a reason why combat promotions have all these prerequisites? It forces all ships in the same promotion path. Removing the option of having semi low tech ships with big guns.
The advanced interceptor batteries are still useless. They come late game, and even then frigates are still stronger then carriers. Maybe give or change it in a bonus against capital ships?
What do you think about giving fighters access to the computer promotions? It fits the lore. to balance it out, the anti-fighter weapons should also give a 25% interception chance. (Imo this promotion is also quite weak, ships are good enough in destroying fighters when they intercept them)


edit:

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

I'm going to my first real test of the game on marathon speed and really enjoying it.
a few bugs so far.
Ground troops can walk in the star system. But it seems the AI can walk around through the galaxy.
I Just got attacked by them. Another bug is with the sattelites. For some reason the AI can load them on destroyers, and launch devastating attacks with them. (good thing for me was they didn't have enough ships to take the system, and satelites can't capture cities?)
I've researched the first two rows of the tech tree and are still more then 400-500 turns away from Q-40, which is needed to build the second generation of destroyers, and first generation of carriers. Except when I can research Q-40 in a decent amount of turns, those ships will be obsolete very quick. (the first cruiser and the second generation carrier is buildable by then)
What do you think of changing the requirements for the first gen carrier, second gen frigate and second gen destroyer to fusion power?

 

[PsiCorps]

I've been looking at this (as it turns out, even before you PMed me PsiCorps).

For me, it does crash early although not exactly when someone builds the first ship. It is possible to continue from the last autosave.

I have not yet used a debug DLL on the thing but...

It looks like the crash is caused by the "unit class default unit types do not exist" issue. In CIV4UnitClassInfos.xml most of the unit classes specify unit types that do not exist in the CIV4UnitInfos.xml file.

Attached is a zip file with a modified version of CIV4UnitClassInfos.xml. I changed all the default unit types to be the Earth Alliance unit types (EA civ selected as the default because I'm on the Earth right now, as I suspect most of the rest of you are). I have not had a crash since the change, although I have not tested it very much. This makes everybody but the EA have ships listed as "Unique Unit for [Civilization X]" and "Replaces [EA ship of that class]" in the 'pedia and hover text - this has the potentially beneficial side effect of making it possible to tell which ships are the same general class of ship (the EA version has links to all of the UU versions in its 'pedia entry). It also makes everybody's civ specific ships show up on their civ screen and the "Dawn of Man" screen at the start of the game as UUs, except for the EA.

I also noticed that there are references to FFP traits in 3 places in the Python. One of them is what is causing the unexplained extra 4 staring experience for every unit. In FinalFrontierEvents.py you can comment out or remove lines 1126-1129 (which will remove the 4 extra xp per unit). In FinalFrontierGameUtils.py you can comment out or remove lines 704-715 (or change the traits specified to be B5 civilizations that have similar properties for these trait specific changes to the settling value of star systems).

The 'pedia index also dies in the D's apparently when trying to add the Dilgar Imperium trait to the list (the Dilgar Imperium civilization is the last thing that shows up so the entry for the trait should be the next thing shown). I'm not sure why - it's entry in the BUG trait related Python file should be checked. Also trait related, there is text for the FFP traits in the TraitsPedia_CIV4GameText.xml file which could be clogging up the works (removing it doesn't solve the index problem).

First of all, many thanks for resolving this issue God-Emperor. I'm going to implement the fix provided immediately.

Not exactly bugs, as such, but there are a variety of "weird things" in the game. Here are 2:
1) The 3rd generation missile is available before the 2nd generation missile. The tech you get the 3rd gen one from is a direct prerequisite in the tech tree for the one where you get the 2nd gen one.

I've just noticed this myself whilst going through a long playtest. This will be changed for the next release.

2) Food output is very high - in my last test game it is not quite turn 150 and the Markab home system (their only system since I recently beat them to settling a star system that would have been their first colony by 2 turns just a few turns ago) has a population of 41 or 42 (which is at least 15 more than it could possibly have actually working on the planets as it is highly unlikely that they have the tech that enables the Extended Habitation System, and even with that they probably couldn't use that much population). I think the reason for this is three things. The biggest is that each civ's "cultural" building is not only giving +1 it is also adding +1 to the planet yields (it is a Nutrition Facility equivalent) even though it does not say it does and since it also gives a bunch of other things that make it desirable to build even when you do not need more food, I expect the AIs are building them on every planet with a pretty high priority. The second is the various percentage bonuses from civics, which tend to be pretty big in the capital city (note that the capital gets both the "in the Capital" and the "in every city" bonuses so +10% and +5 respectively actually gets +15% for the Capitol, Industrialized gets those two bonuses and both Agrarian and Forced Labor get +5% and +5% for a combined total of +25% if you are using Industrialized and either of them). The third thing is various +1 bonuses from other buildings.

Excess food is a native ff problem.
As you stated civics are a huge source of food late game. Maybe later in development the bonus can be removed if the civics get changed.
The other where the trade bonus (food and production) with some traits. But giving a flat +1 food bonus fixes this.
I'm fine with only buildings increasing food yields.

I'm already taking steps to fix this but this will take a little longer to get balanced properly so there may be a few more versions released before I am happy with this issue.

Is there a reason why combat promotions have all these prerequisites? It forces all ships in the same promotion path. Removing the option of having semi low tech ships with big guns.
The advanced interceptor batteries are still useless. They come late game, and even then frigates are still stronger then carriers. Maybe give or change it in a bonus against capital ships?

There is still a lot of fine tuning to do, I'll take this on board and see how else I can make the promotions work better.

What do you think about giving fighters access to the computer promotions? It fits the lore. to balance it out, the anti-fighter weapons should also give a 25% interception chance. (Imo this promotion is also quite weak, ships are good enough in destroying fighters when they intercept them)

I like this suggestion and will add it to my list of things to amend/change. Have to be careful with this as I don't want the total interception value to be more than 95% if a unit had every possible promotion available to it.

Ground troops can walk in the star system. But it seems the AI can walk around through the galaxy.
I Just got attacked by them. Another bug is with the sattelites. For some reason the AI can load them on destroyers, and launch devastating attacks with them. (good thing for me was they didn't have enough ships to take the system, and satelites can't capture cities?)

I'm not seeing this at all, every time I try and move a Planet based unit I get the red circle and can't move. Maybe that will change with God_Emperors Fix!?

I've researched the first two rows of the tech tree and are still more then 400-500 turns away from Q-40, which is needed to build the second generation of destroyers, and first generation of carriers. Except when I can research Q-40 in a decent amount of turns, those ships will be obsolete very quick. (the first cruiser and the second generation carrier is buildable by then)
What do you think of changing the requirements for the first gen carrier, second gen frigate and second gen destroyer to fusion power?

I've already taken steps to redress this issue with the next version to be released, not sure how quickly that will be with Christmas coming up but I'll try and have a release ready for you as a Christmas present!

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

About the food issue with planets, I suggest trying the edited file I uploaded. I changed the nutrition facility to only give 1 food instead of three. Cities with lots of food will still grow very large late game, although it takes a lot longer. And food poor systems will still grow to max size, very close to pop size of each planet. And might even still grow a bit larger then that.

Ground troops can walk over "floodplains". But they can't enter space (outside starsystems). At least that's how they have been working for me.

I'm currently doing an OCC just to see which ships come up first if going through the tech tree column by column.
I would change the first capital ship at electronic warfare to the first cruiser. (the cruiser comes later in the tech tree then the cruiser.)
Make the second gen destroyer and frigate available at fusion power.
And the first capitol ship available with ion particle engine (which is an empty tech). I would suggest the second gen cruiser too. But it seems each race has only 2 cruisers? and 4 capitol ships. Maybe one capitol ship can be changed to a cruiser type?

 

[PsiCorps]

About the food issue with planets, I suggest trying the edited file I uploaded. I changed the nutrition facility to only give 1 food instead of three. Cities with lots of food will still grow very large late game, although it takes a lot longer. And food poor systems will still grow to max size, very close to pop size of each planet. And might even still grow a bit larger then that.

I've also changed the amount of food each population consumes from 1 to 2 and that has had a beneficial effect. Maybe the two combined will slow it down to a better rate!?

Ground troops can walk over "floodplains". But they can't enter space (outside starsystems). At least that's how they have been working for me.

I've still not seen this happening, maybe I'm just not exploring enough!

I'm currently doing an OCC just to see which ships come up first if going through the tech tree column by column.
I would change the first capital ship at electronic warfare to the first cruiser. (the cruiser comes later in the tech tree then the cruiser.)
Make the second gen destroyer and frigate available at fusion power.
And the first capitol ship available with ion particle engine (which is an empty tech). I would suggest the second gen cruiser too. But it seems each race has only 2 cruisers? and 4 capitol ships. Maybe one capitol ship can be changed to a cruiser type?

2 cruisers is right, there are 2 cruisers, 2 battleships, 2 command ships and 2 carriers. I have set these so you can only build a specific amount of them, can't remember the numbers off hand but you can have as many cruisers, destroyers and frigates as you like but the more powerful ships are restricted to only 3,4 or 5 at a time. Can't stand it when you see 20 battleships and no smaller escort vessels. I am looking into moving around when ships become available, especially as I've made a few changes to the tech tree recently.

Thanks for your feedback, it all helps.

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

I've also changed the amount of food each population consumes from 1 to 2 and that has had a beneficial effect. Maybe the two combined will slow it down to a better rate!?

Is the food consumed change in this version already?
With the change I made, I really like the growth of planets. No more size 20 or larger planets early game.

I've still not seen this happening, maybe I'm just not exploring enough!

I've checked again, and I can indeed not walk anymore with ground troops. But the AI still has no problem attacking me with them (which I can't!!! or it might be 'cause of the occ)
The "wandering" troops in the galaxy might very well be stranded troops when their ship was blown up.

2 cruisers is right, there are 2 cruisers, 2 battleships, 2 command ships and 2 carriers. I have set these so you can only build a specific amount of them, can't remember the numbers off hand but you can have as many cruisers, destroyers and frigates as you like but the more powerful ships are restricted to only 3,4 or 5 at a time. Can't stand it when you see 20 battleships and no smaller escort vessels. I am looking into moving around when ships become available, especially as I've made a few changes to the tech tree recently.

Is there a difference between a command ship and a battle ship? Or is that still in development?
As it is now, there will be one cruiser available, then almost all the battle/command ships, and after that near the end of the tech tree the second generation cruiser is there.
The second gen destroyer is available at the same time as your first cruiser, and immediately obsoletes the cruiser by having a higher base strength.

Sometimes when attacking a stack, I get the notice enemy ship is withdrawing from me, and my attacking vessel continues the attack on other ships in a stack. Sometimes forcing the whole stack to retreat, till something gets destroyed. Is this a new feature?

Edit: it seems neither the AI or the player can capture star systems (with troop transport option on, haven't tested yet with it turned off)

 

[God-Emperor]

It turns out that I missed one ship class. The unit class UNITCLASS_STEALTH_SHIP_I is still pointing to the non-existant unit type of UNIT_STEALTH_SHIP_I. This default unit type for this class should be changed to UNIT_STEALTH_SHIP, no "_I" at the end (this is the Technomage ship, the only unit type for this unit class).

BY the way Greeneyedzombie, you probably are only half that far from the Quantium 40 tech as the research point output tends to increase as you go, reducing the research time from what it says considerably. My current test game is at turn 215 ("Normal" game speed) and it my current tech path (not exactly beelining to it) says it is something like 128 turns until I get that tech, but I expect to get there in under 100. I'm maybe 25 turns from getting Crystals hooked up, since I didn't start with any anywhere near me (it has also spurred another round of colonization to colonize 2 star systems between me and the resource, and I'll probably grab another that is near it and one more that is a bit more off the line to it in this round of colonization), shortly after which my research rate will probably increase by at least 50% as I get research labs built and then the Inst. for Advanced Research.

Another "by the way". The AIs colonize very little. Even less than in regular FFP where some of them tend to be a little slow about it. In that current test game I mentioned, I have a total of 10 systems. Everyone else (standard sized map, so there are 6 of them) have a combined total of 9: one has 3, one has 2, and the other four still only have their home systems. I do not know why. Given the relatively low power of the barbarian type ships they should not be much of a deterrent (most civ's scout ships are stronger than the standard raider, especially when defending, and frigates and destroyers are even better).

And yet another "by the way"... It may well be true that the AI can not capture a star system, since you need to use ground troops to do so but the AI does not understand transporting units over land (and may never build the transport ships, but if it does they probably have the standard land Attack unit AIs and such). FFP added the Troop Transport option as a work around. This does not involve actually transporting anything, but instead it uses new a tag in the unit XML that can be used to mark some ship types as "carrying troops" and when this option is active only those ship types that have this new flag set can actually capture a star system (in FFP the 3 generations of Invasion Ship units have this set). No actual troops or transporting involved. If no unit type has this set, then I expect that nothing can capture a star system if this option is turned on regardless of any other unit properties.

 

[God-Emperor]

I recently noticed something. If you build a defense satellite type unit in a system where there is a unit that can carry it, it shows up already loaded on the transport.

I am guessing this is a side effect of the "cannot enter space" setting that they have, in which case I assume that the defense and attack troops also do this as they also have this setting. It's not really a good thing for the defenders to always do this, but it may have the side effect of getting the attack troops loaded onto transports for the AI (which would normally not do so due to the whole land transport issue) and might allow the AI to actually attack with them (if it doesn't unload them, and if it actually builds the units that can transport them).

 

[Greeneyedzombie]

BY the way Greeneyedzombie, you probably are only half that far from the Quantium 40 tech as the research point output tends to increase as you go, reducing the research time from what it says considerably. My current test game is at turn 215 ("Normal" game speed) and it my current tech path (not exactly beelining to it) says it is something like 128 turns until I get that tech, but I expect to get there in under 100. I'm maybe 25 turns from getting Crystals hooked up, since I didn't start with any anywhere near me (it has also spurred another round of colonization to colonize 2 star systems between me and the resource, and I'll probably grab another that is near it and one more that is a bit more off the line to it in this round of colonization), shortly after which my research rate will probably increase by at least 50% as I get research labs built and then the Inst. for Advanced Research.

With a golden age and getting several labs going (most of them in my capitol) with 6 cities (which I already had when posting), it took about 250 turns. Looks like its very doable as it is now.

Another "by the way". The AIs colonize very little. Even less than in regular FFP where some of them tend to be a little slow about it. In that current test game I mentioned, I have a total of 10 systems. Everyone else (standard sized map, so there are 6 of them) have a combined total of 9: one has 3, one has 2, and the other four still only have their home systems. I do not know why. Given the relatively low power of the barbarian type ships they should not be much of a deterrent (most civ's scout ships are stronger than the standard raider, especially when defending, and frigates and destroyers are even better).

Some civs have no problem at all expanding. And it looks to be random each game which civ is expanding a lot, and which civ gets stuck in building culture for the rest of the game. Or not building anything at all.
When they do settle new cities, and they can build culture, they often choose to build culture instead of buildings till the first border pop.

I recently noticed something. If you build a defense satellite type unit in a system where there is a unit that can carry it, it shows up already loaded on the transport.

but it may have the side effect of getting the attack troops loaded onto transports for the AI

This might explain why I got attacked by defence satellites and ground troops being transported by destroyers.

For some reason units in cities won't heal any more. In some cities they do and others they won't. Moving a unit outside the affected city will let them heal normally, but once moved back in they can't heal.
Maybe a fluke of this game since I changed the xml while playing the game?

 

[God-Emperor]

I noticed healing issues too. I'm pretty sure it is because the various Nutrition Facility replacement civ cultural buildings give -5% healing. If you build too many of them you stop all healing in the star system.

Watching one of the other civs, I have noticed that they have issues sending out Colony ships partly because they frequently group them with defense satellites that can't move out of the system then try to move the stack towards the target star system but only the Colony Ship moves and on the next turn it notices it is not escorted and moves back to where it just came from. I'm not sure what to do about this.

I also see them building a few defense satellites with the City Attack unit AI type. I think that this particular unit AI type should be listed in those satellite unit's NotUnitAIs list to prevent this.